


The Way You Make Me Feel

by firetoflame



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Deaf Clint Barton, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 14:56:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7057093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firetoflame/pseuds/firetoflame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And still, she doesn't understand it: this . . . warmth that he exudes towards her. This kindness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way You Make Me Feel

When she finally decides to come in to SHIELD, it's not because Barton sheathed the knife that he held at her throat, or because he lowered the arrow that had been trained on her skull; no, it's because of the way he moved around her, even knowing who she was. The way he hovered in her space: a too calm entity, stretching out before her to close the divide between her and the rest of the world. _A second chance_ he'd said.

It was that feeling more than anything that stayed her own hand. And still, she doesn't understand it: this . . . _warmth_ that he exudes towards her. This kindness.

She's never been touched in soft comfort before. Never offered words of kindness meant to console. The Red Room was a world of cold stone and harsh corners. It was handlers with icy smiles and frozen fingers. She learned early on to fear their touch, and then, when she became the Widow—a siren capable of spilling their blood—to hate it. She hasn't been touched in a very long time, not outside a mission, not outside a mark. So when she starts at SHIELD and Coulson offers her a hand in welcome, she tucks her arms against her chest.

Barton shrugs, rubbing at the back of his head, and Coulson drops his arm without missing a beat, offering a smile instead. She ducks her head in acknowledgment and follows Barton to where her quarters will be.

She does this every day for a month, one step behind because she likes to watch him. Feels easier knowing that she's memorized the way he walks, the sounds his footsteps make hitting the ground. It will make it easier should he ever try to kill her again.

Soon the days of forced isolation end and she's instead forced into a battery of physicals and evaluations.  Barton's there as some sort of security, accompanying her to each one. He steers her with a hand on her shoulder and she doesn't know what to do. She shrugs him off at one point with a hard glare, but he just smiles and stuffs his hands in his pockets, undeterred.  A few moments later his shoulder brushes hers and she's not sure whether he does it on purpose but he looks relaxed and all she wants to do is curl away.

He's free with his touches in a way she doesn't understand. _Can't understand_. So, unable to reply in kind, she continues to glare.

This, she thinks, becomes the basis of their partnership: her death glares and his blatant disregard for personal space.

He tests her limits— _oh boy_ does he—but she doesn't kill him.

Coulson wouldn't like it.

. . .

The mission in Sao Paulo is a wreck from beginning to end. The intel is bad, there's a security leak that she's forced to eliminate without a direct order, causing a problem with the higher ups, and in the middle of it all they lose sight of the target until he's managed to slaughter another teenage girl.

When it's over Natasha can feel the blood seep under her nails. It's jarring, how much it makes her feel like her old self—dirty, tainted.

That night they curl up in their beds, separate, on opposite sides of the room. Natasha stares at the ceiling for hours, watching the rotation of the fan mounted above them. It hums and still she stares, until her eyes burn, but she can't sleep, not when she can't unsee these things.

It's not the first time a mission's gone south for her, but the Red Room was not one for mindful absolutions. They shook their head and sent her back into the field. There was no time to mourn the failure; she simply covered it with more blood.

But here, with SHIELD and their . . . _nonchalance_?

She can’t do it.

 _It's okay, Tasha. We don't always win. Doesn't me we don't try_ , he'd told her when she finally said something in the aftermath of the mission as they reported banged and bruised to the safe house.

She can hear Clint's deep breaths and how he's even asleep right now she doesn't know, but it’s calming. Those breaths . . . she's learned the sound of him in their time spent together as partners. Some forced on her part, some by osmosis. She's learned his sniper breaths, his husky chuckle, the sounds he makes when he's injured, breathing through his teeth, and even the wide breaths through his nose when he's happy. It's the soundtrack of her life now.

Some kind of gut instinct pulls her out of bed and she pads across the room. She lifts the corner of the comforter on Clint's bed and places one knee beneath.  When he doesn't stir she climbs up beside him, not quite touching, but close enough to feel the vibration of his breathing. It's soothing in a way she's never known before. A comfort when nothing else can be.

She settles, sighing into the pillow.

Clint stretches in his sleep, his knuckles brushing the back of her arm. Her whole body stills as he breaks from his sleep.

"Tash?"

"Shut up, Barton."

She hears the smile in his voice when he mutters, "G'night."

In the morning they're still not touching, but he's curved around her like a puzzle piece about to fit. She doesn't hate it, she thinks. But she still doesn't know what to do with it. This new desire to be near him.

. . .

He loses his hearing in an explosion meant to kill them. It doesn't, but he's deaf.

His eyes squint up when he figures it out, when he opens his mouth but the words don't reach him. It's fear and the unknown and a desperation for comfort that breaks his face.

She shuffles closer to his bed, close enough to grab his hand. And she squeezes. It's the first time she's touched him for comfort—to offer what she's not sure she knows how to give. He squeezes back and his skin shakes under hers, spreading through his body, through his chest, and he cries.

She doesn't know what to do exactly, but the touch is nice. It doesn't panic her the way she thought it might, so she moves closer and sits on the edge of the bed, feeling his thigh up against hers. Her hand moves up his arm—touching, comforting in this new way—to his shoulder, stroking his neck. She lays her head against his chest, arms snaking up around his neck in a hug. It's the first between them. The first she's given to anyone but a mark since she was a girl being tucked in by her parents.

His arms are hesitant as they wrap around her, like he thinks she might spook, but she holds steady, despite the uneven beat of her heart.

What this means she doesn't know. All she knows is that she doesn’t need words. And neither does he.

. . .

Months later they're back in the field.

SHIELD's made him hearing aids to supplement what he's lost, but he still takes them out sometimes, so touch has become something essential between them. Something required to communicate.

She turns his chin up when he's not paying attention so he can see the words her hands make. He touches her, too. Fingertips along her shoulder.  A hand at the small of her back.

It's only to grab her attention, but it's soft and he's always so gentle.

. . .

They're in his apartment one day, flaked out with pizza and beer. She says something funny—he likes her dark and twisted sense of humour—and he laughs so hard the beer threatens to come out his nose.

He gasps, a hand pressed to her thigh, and a warmth spreads through her chest.

He wipes at his mouth, pulling at the smile there. When he lifts his head he's closer, really close, and she can feel his breath against her face.

He blinks at her once, face red and weathered from the sun.

Then he leans forward and presses his lips to hers.

She freezes the moment their skin touches and he pulls away just as suddenly. She looks at him, eyes wide, panicked.

"Tash," he starts, but she flies off the couch when his hands come up.

She's across the living room in an instant, putting distance between them.

She sees him in the reflection of the window. He stands approaching her on careful feet. Slow.

She turns when he stops behind her, eyes still wide as she looks at him.

"Tash, I'm sorry. I didn't . . . I wasn't thinking."

She touches her lips with the tips of her fingers and they tingle at the memory. At the touch that was there.  He'd startled her, _yes_ , but it wasn't unwelcome . . . just new. Kisses have never been something she's shared for anything more than information. And never for her own pleasure. Because of her own want. She knows how to kiss, _oh yes_. How to make men moan into her mouth, but she doesn't know how to do that with Clint Barton.

But she wants to. She wants to learn him. The taste of him.

"Did you mean it?" she asks, feeling the warmth in her chest crawl across her cheeks.

"I . . . what?"

"Did you mean it? Just now? When you kissed me?"

He studies her for a long moment. "I . . . yes. But we can forget it. Pretend like it never happened if that's what you want. I'm sorry, I should have—"

She takes a step closer to him. Everything is slow. Tentative. She tucks her hands into his and he goes quiet. Still. She likes this. The still makes it easier to learn him. She looks up into his eyes, finding desire and fear mingled there. Fear that she'll run. But she doesn't.

On stretched toes she stands, reaching for him, and though he's done his best not to move, he tips his head ever so slightly so she can reach.

She kisses him this time, and though it's gentle and light, it's certain.

"Tash?" he mumbles when she pulls away.

She turns her head, hiding a smile. "Shut up, Barton."

. . .

The first time he takes her to bed it's because she can't stop touching him. They've waited a long time, until she's sure of herself and of him, and even when she'd said she was he'd waited because he didn't want to lose her by rushing into something.

But when they finally, _finally_ , come together after months of stolen kisses and whispered touches, it's off of the adrenaline of a successful mission and it's good. So good. There are moans and shivers and a tremble under her skin that builds and fuses in the pit of her stomach. There are whispers of _more_ and _harder_ and Clint touches her everywhere. All the places that make her toes curl.

"Tash," he grunts, thrusting up inside her. He presses his lips to her neck, against her pulse, and his hand works between them, flattening against her sex until she shatters into a million pieces of herself.

"Clint," she moans, grabbing at his shoulders as she rides the glow of heat that spirals out of her.

He shudders, his whole body tensing as he comes.

In the aftermath he lays against her, his weight a warmth, his touch complete. Encompassing.

He's taught her how to touch, she realizes suddenly. Taught her when she thought the ability had been burned from her. And maybe in her broken, backwards kind of way, even how to love.


End file.
